A Silent Film of Ozu: I Graduated, But...

A college graduate has moved to Tokyo and started looking for work. It is difficult, the year is 1929 and the crisis just begun. He gets an interview and goes there to be offered a very low position. He rejects the job and returns to the small rented room he lives in, to find there his fiancee along with his mother: they came to celebrate his new start. He hides them the truth and in the following days he leaves in the morning pretending he's going to work. The fiancee discovers the truth and is decided to find a job for herself, to help with money. He goes in the evenings in a bar to have a beer and finds her there working as a waitress. He is firstly furious, then he realizes her sacrifice and decides to accept the offer he got at the interview. So he goes back to find out that the offer was just to test him: actually he will work in a much better position.

It's Ozu hundred percent: nice middle class guys understanding their mistakes as they get lessons of life from their loved ones. The social situation is harsh, but the tone of Ozu is mild, his empathy for the personages is total. Says Donald Richie in his monumental monograph consecrated to the great Japanese director, he (Ozu) was always ready to accept human nature as he found it... (and) he went on to celebrate it.

I Graduated, But... (Daigaku wa detakereda) is one of the movies of Ozu that is lost. Released in 1929, it was 100 minutes long. What remained are some fragments that have together a length of ten minutes. At least they offer a good summary of the plot.

(video by GoldenSilents)

It is unfortunate that the whole movie is no more. Critics consider it as marking the emergence of what is known as the style of Ozu. You can see in the fragments put together in the video: think at the poster with Harold Lloyd that keeps on coming on the screen, think at the two kids playing the ball, think at the scenes in the bar. And don't forget the train that appears a second, in the end! As I said, it's Ozu hundred percent, the amazing Ozu.

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Here is what Ozu himself said about this movie. I found this at

http://www.a2pcinema.com/ozu-san/films/igraduatedbut.htm

I cast Takada Minoru and Tanaka Kinuyo for the first time in this film. I had made a good number of student films, but when it came to filming young actors, it was hard to go beyond the old themes of salarymen or college life. However, in those days, the images of white-collar types were limited. As for students, they were of course a different breed from the ones nowadays, who get into fights with the police. They were all very carefree, and comparatively easy fodder for jokes in nonsense comedies. Shimizu Hiroshi originally wanted to direct this film, but somehow, the script fell into my lap. I thought, if I was determined to be a director, then I must get to grips with any genre and make every film as well as I could. It's all very well for the so-called film auteur to have artistic ideas but one also needs the professional flair for handling all the different aspects of filmmaking. Admittedly, excessive professionalism could spell trouble, but I was nonetheless extremely grateful for the chance to develop my professionalism through making these kinds of films.


(Yasujiro Ozu and Setsuko Hara)